Jacek Malczewski (1854 Radom - 1929 Krakow), Portrait of Julcia, 1924

oil, cardboard, 101.5 × 69 cm
Signed and dated l. g.: "Jacek Malczewski 1924".

on the reverse: a sticker of Robert Jahoda's Kraków-based Picture Framing Company.

The painting is accompanied by the expert opinion of Ms. Paulina Szymalak-Bugajska (expert and monographer of Jacek Malczewski's work, author of many publications about the artist).

"The portrait was painted in 1924. According to Tadeusz Z. Bednarski, at that time the Malczewski family still lived at 8 Krupnicza Street in Krakow, renting from Baron Jan Franciszek Konopka of Brno, according to Michalina Janoszanka: "A spacious apartment, with a huge living room with three windows, [which] occupied the entire second floor." Tadeusz Z. Bednarski closes the time of renting the apartment by the Malczewski family at 8 Krupnicza Street with the dates: from October 23, 1911 to September 1926 (T. Z. Bednarski, Krakowskie szlakiem Jacka Malczewskiego, Krakow 1999, p. 100.). With certainty, we can assume that Malczewski's, on successive moves, was accompanied by particularly favorite works of the artist, as well as his favorite furniture. One of the paintings that occupied a prominent place in the living room at Krupnicza Street was "Tobias with Angels" (ca. 1908, oil, board, 197 × 244 cm, currently owned by the Silesian Museum in Katowice, purchased for the collection from the artist's wife): "It was dominated by Tobias with angels, whose wings and draperies were luscious in color, as if a celebration of spring. Tobias - Polish was a grouch with an expression of overbearing simplicity in his face. The picture was painted on a board, terribly heavy." (M. Janoszanka, The Great Tertiary. "My Memories of Jacek Malczewski," Poznan, p. 213). It is the lower part, this definitely sizable work, that we can recognize in the background, hanging on the wall on the left, above the sofa. The interior of the room is filled with characteristic Biedermeier-style furniture with green upholstery and gilded frames, which appear several times in the artist's work. (...)
The female portrait is most likely the image of a cook employed by the Malczewski family in the 1920s. This is supported primarily by the outfit and the grimace painted on the woman's face. The model is wearing a "working" outfit - an apron and a kerchief tightly tied in her hair, while displaying a wide smile that exposes her white teeth. It should be noted that teeth exposed in a smile, whether in a photograph or in a portrait, were still extremely rare, and were perceived as a decidedly inelegant facial grimace, revealing emotions to the viewer, the disclosure of which was not advisable in a portrait. In the case of Jacek Malczewski's works, the teeth-revealing smile appears almost exclusively in works depicting symbolic figures (fantastic chimeras or harpies, such as the heroine of "The Poisoned Well with a Chimera" from 1905, owned by the Jacek Malczewski Museum in Radom), who usually present rich facial expressions, consistent with their symbolic function. In the case of the cook, a person from a lower status, a cheerful and broad smile did not detract from her seriousness, and on the contrary may have been the reason why the woman was portrayed by the artist. The model's social position, but also the condescension towards her, conditioned by the times, is also emphasized by the form of her name used in the title, referring to an otherwise adult woman as "Julcia" and not "Julia."

Thanks to Michalina Janoszanka's memoirs, we learn a little more about the enigmatic figure of the cook: "Extraordinary, too, were the conversations he had with the servants and people he met by chance. The cook, who had been there for twenty-some years, he asked several times a day: "Jula, are you Polish?" (M. Janoszanka, The Great Tertiary. My Memories of Jacek Malczewski, Poznań, pp. 27, 28)
This is most likely the same cook who straightforwardly and directly commented on the character of her employer and his unpredictable, even for an artist, manner of behavior, saying: "I have seen a lot of different ones, but such a headstrong gentleman as ours, never" (i.w., p.92).

There are at least a dozen, if not dozens of works in which Malczewski portrayed servants (including maids, cooks). Women serving at the Malczewski's sometimes lent their features to symbolic figures, quoting after Janoszanka: "Wonderful works were created from cooks and maids: Medusa and Harpies with wings at their heads" (i.w. p.156)

The second variant was the artist's creation of individual images of servants, devoid of fantastic entourage. And it is precisely the reviewed work, which falls into the category of portraits of people from the artist's closest environment, which includes the cook Julcia present in the Malczewski's home life both during their apartment at 8 Krupnicza Street and at their last address in Salwator - 7 Anczyca Street (since 1926). (T. Z. Bednarski, op.cit. p. 100). (...)

The artist's son, Rafal Malczewski, also mentions a mysterious cook: "I also remember a cook who cooked >>just so<<, but was extremely beautiful. She posed for one painting, the name of which I don't remember or what it was supposed to depict. Only that the cook was dressed in silks and it was in greenish-violet stripes. But maybe I'm wrong." (R. Malczewski, Recollection about my father, in Jacek and Rafał Malczewski [album concept and editing by Z. K. Posiadała; authors of the texts R. Malczewski, Wł. Odojewski, Z. K. Posiadała, P. Szymalak], Radom, Poznań 2014, p. 83)
Selected excerpts from the opinion of Ms. Paulina Szymalak-Bugajska.